Volans
No
- Keel of the boat
- Painter
- Swordfish
- Mesa
- Chameleon
The Flying Fish ( Volans or Piscis Volans Latin ) is a constellation of the southern sky.
Description
The Flying Fish is a faint constellation south of the keel of the ship ( Carina ). None of his star is brighter than the third magnitude.
History
The Flying Fish is one of the constellations, which were introduced by the Dutch navigators Pieter Keyser and Frederick de Houtman Dirkszoon end of the 16th century. Johann Bayer took over the constellation in his 1603 celestial atlas published Uranometria.
Celestial objects
Stars
The brightest star in the flying fish is β Volantis, a 108 light-years distant, orange shining star of spectral type K2 III.
Double stars
The second brightest star, γ Volantis, is a double star system in 142 light years away. Due to the relatively large angular separation of 13.6 arcseconds both stars can already be observed with a small telescope.
κ Volantis is 393 light years distant triple star system. The brightest component is κ1, a bluish giant star of spectral type B9. In 65 seconds of arc distance is κ ², a supergiant of spectral type A0. 37.7 arcseconds away is the third component, κ κ1 and κ2 C. Volantis can already be separated with a prism binoculars. In a smaller telescope, all three stars are visible.
Epsilon Volantis ( ε Volantis ) is another triple-star system.
NGC objects
The flying fish the barred spiral galaxy NGC 2442 can be observed.